Sports' Make-Believe Reflects Reality

Back in the 1600s, British playwright William Congreve produced The Mourning Bride. It had kings and love and mistaken identity and disguises and beheading and tragedy. All the things you saw in sports just last week, in other words.

The play’s most enduring contribution to modern culture was the closing line from Act III: Heav’n has no rage like love to hatred turn’d. Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d. Hence the saying, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. But Scorn’d Woman might lose in a pay-per-view heavyweight match in Hell today against Scorn’d Sports Consumer, as disgraced Lance Armstrong and shamed Manti Te’o can tell you today while soaked in so much ...

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